AMERICA'S OLIGARCHS
"Germ-Ridden Masses" - How America's Wealthy Elite Describe the Rest of Us
Increasingly, journalists at establishment publications come from and
represent the one percent that they claim to be holding to account.
by Alan Macleod
May 27th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Many of the world's super wealthy are trying to wait out the COVID-19
pandemic on their luxury yachts. But how to get to them without interacting
with the public and catching the virus themselves? Such are the difficult
quandaries only billionaires have to deal with. Fortunately, financial news
outlet Bloomberg has solved the big question of the current era. A new
company, it excitedly informs its readers, offers chartered private jets
from your location to the Mediterranean island of Malta, without the need to
"risk exposure to the germ-ridden masses." New York-based reporter Suzanne
Woolley, who has recently penned articles such as "How to arbitrage your
U.S. taxes for difficult economic times" and "Where to invest $1 million
right now," notes that aviation company VistaJet allows its clients to
reserve its freshly sanitized jet to take them to Malta. "Lest anyone be
worried that the island nation itself is germ-ridden," she writes, the World
Health Organization has praised it for its capable fight against the
coronavirus.
One big problem, however, is where your yacht is. The article explains that
"if your yacht is moored in Antibes [France] or Porto Cervo [Italy], you're
out of luck," taking for granted that anyone reading does own one, also
suggesting that now would be the perfect time to shop for a Maltese
passport, as the island, an E.U. member state, levies no income or capital
gains taxes on that earned abroad, and there is no estate tax on the island.
All you need is $1.3 million in cash or property.
The article's tone, especially twice describing the general public, even of
Malta, one of the richest states in the world, as "germ ridden masses,"
highlights the increasing gap between the world's super wealthy and the rest
of us, and the contempt and disgust the haves feel for the have-nots. In
April, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was met with a storm of
criticism after posing in front of her enormous refrigerator costing tens of
thousands of dollars, revealing her penchant for deluxe ice cream at $12 per
tub. For many, the centi-millionaire and wife of one of California's richest
men telling others how to survive lockdown while residing in a mansion was a
Marie Antoinette-like moment of pure ignorance.
Since the lockdown began, America's billionaires have seen their wealth
balloon by $434 billion according to the Institute for Policy Studies, even
as the economy crashes and nearly 40 million Americans have been made
unemployed. Among the biggest winners from the worldwide suffering has been
Michael Bloomberg himself, owner of the eponymous news network. The former
Mayor of New York has added $12.3 billion to his net worth in the last two
months, increasing his fortune by over 25 percent. Bloomberg spent around $1
billion on his recent failed presidential run, amassing only 43 delegates
before pulling out. Regardless, his big money media campaign flop pales in
comparison to the fortune he has reaped thanks to the Trump administration's
CARES Act, perhaps the largest wealth transfer in human history, in which 82
percent of the tax savings will be enjoyed by those who earn over $1 million
per year.
The winners from the CARES Act - America's billionaires - have also chosen
New Zealand as a convenient destination to avoid a pandemic. A new company
is doing a roaring trade designing and installing nuclear bunkers in remote
areas of the Pacific nation's South Island. They are designed so that even
locals are unaware they are there. Prices begin at $2 million for the
simplest designs but can rise to over $11 million, depending on the level of
luxury desired.
Increasingly, journalists at establishment publications come from and
represent the one percent that they claim to be holding to account. A study
published in the Journal of Expertise found that editors and writers for The
New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The New Republic were actually
slightly more likely than billionaires to have attended an elitist
institution like Harvard University or the Columbia School of Journalism,
where attendance costs well over $100,000 per year. As the study concluded:
"Elite journalists resemble senators, billionaires and World Economic Forum
attendees in terms of educational attainment." This elitism begins to seep
into writing, hence the inability to understand political movements like
those around Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, or the temptation to casually
demonize human beings as "germ-ridden masses" in news reporting.
As of Wednesday, there have been over 5.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases,
with 354,762 reported deaths.